Check Out This Wasp Eating A Rattlesnake!

August 15, 2017

What do you love most about summers in L.A.: picnics on the beach, Griffith Park barbecues, camping in the mountains, eating hot dogs at a Dodger game? I love summers for those reasons, too, but it is also my favorite time of the year to look for insects, a lifelong obsession I can’t seem to shake. Most bugs are busy doing whatever they need to do to survive without any trouble to us humans, but sometimes uninvited insect guests show up to our summertime celebrations and help themselves to our burgers and carnitas tacos.

Western yellow jacket (Vespula pensylvanica) photo: Lisa Gonzalez

The biggest culprits are wasps that naturalists call yellow jackets, although I have heard people refer to them as “meat bees,” (as well as some other names I cannot mention in polite company). Yellow jackets are indeed a huge nuisance at barbecues and birthday parties; they come very boldly in large numbers to bite off pieces of meat. If a person gets in their way, they can produce a painful sting, about the same strength as a honeybee sting, but unlike honeybees, yellow jackets can sting repeatedly.

I have become so accustomed to seeing them eat “people food” that I was intrigued when I recently saw a photo on iNaturalist of yellow jackets systematically eating a Southern Pacific rattlesnake down to the bone. Yellow jackets are opportunistic predators that usually hunt spiders, and other insects like caterpillars, but they will also scavenge protein where they can find it. Whether that is a dead cow in our burger, or a dead rattlesnake on the ground, meat is not to be passed up as it is essential for the survival of their colony.

Like some other species of bees, wasps, and the majority of ants, yellow jackets have a queen. The yellow jacket queen emerges in the spring, constructs the nest from wood fibers, lays her eggs, and begins to hunt for insects and spiders to feed her offspring as soon as they hatch. Once her infertile daughters are fully grown, they will carry on as workers by providing protein sources to their younger sisters while their queen stays in the nest to lay more eggs. Males are around only in late summer to mate with potential future queens, who will start new colonies the following spring. This means that the yellow jackets you see hunting in your gardens, scavenging carrion on trails, or helping themselves to your barbecue are females that are working hard to feed their little sisters.

In the process of collecting food, yellow jackets help to keep insect populations in check, acting as what gardeners call “beneficial predators,” but they also play an important role as part of the clean-up crew of the natural world. Along with some species of beetles and flies, yellow jackets are helping to recycle nutrients by scavenging dead animals. They are even important to forensic entomologists, scientists who analyze crime scenes by studying the insects that visit corpses. Carrion feeding insects only feed on dead animals at certain stages of decompostion, so identifying the insects can serve as a clock for investigators to approximate when death occured. In studies conducted with pigs to understand the role wasps like yellow jackets play in breaking down decaying animals, researchers observed wasps clipping pieces off of pig’s ears. No wonder yellow jackets are lured in by the smell of cooked hot dogs, pig parts rolled up in a tasty, easy to bite off bundle! As predators and scavengers, yellow jackets are willing to eat a wide variety of meat, not unlike some humans. Maybe this common ground will help us to make peace with these uninvited summertime guests.

Special thanks to Patrick Gavit and Gary Woo for their amazing photo submissions, and to Dr. Greg Pauly who shared them with me!

(Posted by: Lisa Gonzalez)

5 Comments

Tundrawolfqueen said August 16, 2017

Thank you for this awesome & interesting article! It was so informative & certainly changed my attitude in regards to these little flying insects. (Even though they really can deliver a whollop of sting!!) I like knowing that they are beneficial in quite a lot of ways, including for gardeners.
Keep up your wonderful work!!

Thanks for writing this nice blog. I wish I would have come back to this rattlesnake later in the day and the next day to document the progression of the scavenging activity of the wasps. If I ever observe this again, I will remember to do that. I recall once coming across another complete and intact skeleton of a snake. I now think that this could have resulted from scavenging by wasps. When a mammal or bird scavenges a snake, the skeleton would probably not be so perfect.

Great posting. Thanks! A couple of weeks ago I was in Maine with my family. One day we were eating lunch outside at a roadside eatery when a yellowjacket came buzzing in very much interested in our sandwiches. She was very persistent despite our attempts to shoo her away so I ended up trapping her on the tabletop with a clear plastic cup. My daughters felt very sorry for her and despite telling them that she was fine and that I'd release her after we were done, they insisted on immediately releasing her. I tried to ignore their pleas as I ate my sandwich (mmmm, meatloaf...) while they watched the yellowjacket crawling around and attempting to escape. Finally, we finished eating and I saved a small piece of meatloaf to give to our temporary prisoner upon her release. I was glad that my girls were not afraid of the yellowjacket, and actually were worried about her welfare. I'll save the story how one of them cried for the lobsters we ate the night before for another time.